Just One Touch (Slow Burn #5)(39)

"You look like you're about to collapse," Gracie said in her quiet, sweet voice. "Why don't you sit down. This will likely take a while and I promise and cross my heart that if Isaac withholds anything from you, the girls and I will fill you in on everything."

Jenna smiled and stifled a yawn. "Now that you mention it, I am pretty tired."

But when the women turned away to return to their husbands, Jenna retreated to the far side of the room and sank down the wall with her back against it, grasping her knees and pulling them to her chin.

She stared in envy and also felt keenly bereft of something she couldn't even put a name to when she saw how obvious it was that their husbands loved them. They didn't go a minute without touching them. Pressing little kisses to their heads, noses, necks and even lifting their hands occasionally to nibble on their fingers. There was no discomfort. The unmarried men took it all good-naturedly and judging by the rosy glows on the women's cheeks, they enjoyed their husbands' touches very much. As much as their kisses.

It was like nothing she'd ever witnessed. None of the men in the cult had kissed their wives, acted affectionate toward them, held them simply for the sake of touching them or teased them with soft laughter. God, the love that blazed in the eyes of these men for their wives was enough to make Jenna run from the room in shame.

Would anyone ever look at her like that? She was a product of what the cult had created. Conditioned to believe that the things she'd been taught were the same everywhere in the world. Except . . . Isaac had looked at her very much like these men looked at their wives, and when he kissed her, any previous notions about kissing being distasteful vanished and she became immersed, lost in a world she'd never known existed. What did it all mean? Surely Isaac couldn't profess to feel deeply for her so soon. They barely knew one another. But he was so convincing. Or perhaps she saw and felt what she wanted to and reality was a far cry from the fantasy she'd created. 

How was she supposed to know what to think? To believe? How was she, with her ignorance of life beyond the boundaries of the compound that had been her prison, supposed to know what was real and what wasn't? Her mind was in absolute chaos and she couldn't process the bombardment of behavior that was completely alien to her any more than she could possibly believe that any of it was normal. What if they were the freaks and she was the only normal one?

She nearly choked as a harsh laugh burned her throat and she swallowed it back. If anyone was the freak, it was her. She viewed the obvious love between these husbands and wives with skepticism because deep down it hurt her to know that these women had something she would give anything for.

And, well, she had to be honest with herself because it was the only thing left to her when everything else in her life was a lie. The truth of the matter was that she was bitterly envious of Ramie, Ari and Gracie. Her envy sliced deeper than any shame or any wound ever bestowed upon her by her captors ever had. The cut wasn't smooth or shallow. It was ripped open, scarring her and bleeding all the way to her soul.

Was it a sin to covet what most other young girls who grew into women wished for? All she'd ever fantasized about was the outside world being nothing like the relationships of the people within the cult. She dreamed of a normal life with a man, a husband who loved her, who would give her children and who didn't care about her powers nor was threatened by them. But she'd never known if the rest of the world was any different. Now that she knew the truth, it only made her yearning that much more pronounced. What if it was too late for her? She was too marked, the scars too deep and pronounced by her time with the cult to ever have anyone look at her with anything but pity or disgust. Or downright disbelief.

After what seemed an eternity, the women and even Isaac along with some of his men finally stopped glancing over at her in concern, and they began to make plans and discuss necessary precautions.

Jenna buried her face in her knees, rocking back and forth, making herself the smallest ball she could manage and as unnoticeable as she could so no attention was drawn to her. She simply couldn't bear the pity or even anger in their eyes, their expressions. She knew that they'd been dragged into a problem that wasn't theirs to solve, much less become involved in.

She needed to get away as fast as possible. She needed to run so that these people who represented everything good in the world weren't tainted by her and never had to suffer because they interfered on her behalf.

As much as she wanted to believe that Isaac cared for her and as much as she wanted to be to him what the other women were to their husbands, she knew it wasn't a realistic dream. She'd get him killed. Maybe even the husbands of the other women and then, God, how could she face any of them? How could she face herself or ever look in the mirror again knowing she was the reason for so much pain and death? She had to let go of her ridiculous dreams and embrace what was real. And what was real was the fact that she and anyone close to her would never be safe. No man could be expected to live his life having to look over his shoulder constantly and dodge death at every turn. And it would kill her to see Isaac walk away after having experienced, even for a little while, what life would be like with a man like him. It hurt her deeply to leave him now, but it would completely break her if he left after he'd been hers for even a short period of time.